Of course Conservatives are going to find Reagan hotter. Sure, Ms. Upton may have more physical beauty, but nothing causes a Conservative to go from flaccid to ready to launch faster than some good, old fashioned bigotry. All Chris Christie has to do to get millions of Conservatives to reach for the lotion and tissue paper is to talk about those strapping young bucks and their Cadillac driving queens.

@Zam: I used to think that, but now it’s actually starting to get amusing. Anyway, I think in a generation Reagan worship will die out. The same people who turned on Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Hoover aren’t going to idolize Reagan forever, seeing as how he was Mr. Tax-hike and Compromise with the ruskies and all.

: I have a better chance of having sex with Kate Upton, which will serve as a tie breaker. Sorry Republicans.

You sure about that? I’m pretty sure that a donation in the right dollar amount to either the RNC or any of the other Republican fundraising arms could get you some personal time with his corpse, no questions asked.

@Belafon: When did it ever matter to a wingnut whether or not their views and admirations were grounded in reality? Sure the fiscal conservative nonsense is a myth but they love him just as much for his running on the southern strategy and hating “them colored folk”, which was absolutely true. Make the right dog whistles and nothing else will matter to a bigoted asshole.

pretty much depends on how Kate feels about Benghazi… that’s a deal breaker for most of the folks over there unless it can be proven that she’s sleeping with a Conservative member of the C Street Klan, then that would make everything A-OK, Christian conservative values regarding the sanctity of marriage and all that.

Nature/nurture, yeah, yeah — I know that upbringing and environment are huge influences. But I cannot, in my wildest imagining, come up with a Tucker Carlson that isn’t, as John Stewart put it, “a dick.” Tucker Carlson a pink-diaper baby in a union family? He’d turn out to be a dick. Tucker Carlson born to a single mother in Oregon? A dick. Tucker Carlson born a semi-nomadic Masai on the African savannah? A dick.

That whole premise is deeply disturbing. I don’t find the hetero-homosexual thing worrisome; I know that more or less 58.4% of Republicans are closeted. It’s the necrophilia angle that I find a little creepy. I guess I just don’t get the appeal, though, not being a Republican.

Male heterosexuals and others who like a smoking hot woman, have a look at that photo shoot and then see if you can remember anything about Reagan. I’m coming up with nothing save for “zero-G sex is now on my bucket list”, myself.

Reagan opened the door for the Moral Majority and its spawn that currently infect our politics to have a seat at the political table.

Even Sen. Goldwater*, who was still in theSenate when Reagan took office, in 1981, thought it was nuts to give fundies poltical power.

It really does not matter Reagan actually did in office or what he advocated for, such as global nuclear disarmament, because what matters is that the reason the fundies control the Republican Party is because of Reagan. Nothing else matters, because the Reagan worship is a veneer of how to show gratitude to giving your crazy ideas** a chance to infect the mainstream.

* I believe Goldwater recommended Sandra Day O’Connor for the Supreme Court.

** home schooling comes to mind as something that went from WTF? To acceptable because of fundies political pressure.

“Green balloons” thread, so: a darling student just came by to drop off her final paper, and also brought me a present — a copy of Atlas Shrugged, her favorite novel (which I said in class I hadn’t read).

@Roger Moore: I grew up in Yorba Linda, my high school was just around the corner and we got days off of school when they opened the library and for the funeral. So, as I saw it in high school, Nixon did two good things. Went to the library a couple of times, including for my AP government class. The original Watergate “room” was interesting – specifically designed to get you to not spend time in it.

“Green balloons” thread, so: a darling student just came by to drop off her final paper, and also brought me a present — a copy of Atlas Shrugged, her favorite novel (which I said in class I hadn’t read).

Read it and follow up with something like “I can see why this is the best selling children’s book of all-time”.

@Gene108: The funny thing is the Reagan that is idolized by the current political right would be unrecognizable to the real Reagan. For example, given how Obama is criticized for talking to Putin, today’s conservatives would have their heads explode if they knew Reagan made nice to Gorbachov(sp?).

@gogol’s wife: I have told my kids about Atlas Shrugged, and while i recommend a lot of books to them, that isn’t one of them. So, my 14 year old asked me the other day “Am I cynical enough to read it now?”

He’s also my mythology reader, and understands that the difference between a religion and mythology is whether the speaker observes it or not.

Could gogol’s wife anonymously mail John Rogers’ immortal take to this darling, but badly mistaken, student?

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

I’m convinced that within that number lies the secrets of the universe. It appears way too often not to have some kind of significance on a cosmic scale. Maybe some kind of particle that causes human dickbaggery or mental illness or something.

not to mention Iran-Contra, in which representatives of the US government secretly sold US armaments to known terrorists in an officially-hostile nation (Iran), in order to create an unConstitutional slush fund not appropriated by Congress, so that the Reagan Admin could secretly fund fascist death squads in allegedly sovereign Central American nations in an attempt to overthrow legally-elected governments — said fascist death squads then adopting such hearts-and-minds techniques as raping nuns before murdering them.

“These folks can still party like it’s 1999,” said Peter Ragone, a senior adviser to Mr. de Blasio. “The 21st century called and asked if they want to join us and help everyday Americans get ahead.”
By MICHAEL BARBARO and MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
MAY 14, 2014

Jeb Bush, a possible Republican presidential candidate, offered to help run a campaign to oust the new mayor in 2017. Bill O’Reilly, the Fox News titan, said he wanted “to beat him up.”

And at a black-tie dinner a few nights ago, a billionaire donor to the Republican Party warned that under his stewardship, New York City risked becoming the “New Havana.”

National Republicans, alarmed by the rising influence of activist liberals in government and eager to paint the Democratic Party as captive to its left wing, seem to have settled on an unlikely new nemesis: Bill de Blasio.

It is a startling turn for a municipal leader who was virtually unknown, even within New York, just a year ago, but now finds himself on the same conservative dartboard as far better established figures, like Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and the occupant of the Oval Office.

The fire authority has been doing the most aggressive and extensive brush removal that I’ve ever seen around me. I think their experts have determined that everything is going to catch on fire this year. Our neighborhood is pretty well protected from fires – but we’re doing another full pass on getting our shit in order.

@🌷 Martin: I was up in the Laguna Mountains this weekend and it was dry, but not as dry as I expected. The rains a couple weeks ago maybe helped. Or I could just be trying to be optimistic, hoping it’s not 2007 again.

I actually went to Politico to see if they had any “insight.” None was forthcoming, but in the comments I learned that she was another casualty of the thuggish fascist Obama regime and its jackbooted minions.

Fuck me a wildfire started a mile and a half from our house. Wife and kids are out of town so rushing home to get dogs out of there. Thanks Al Gore

@ranchandsyrup: Lost one employee out of the office today as he got put under evac, had to go get his kids. This is a lot closer to my house than I’d like, but we’ve no pets and I’m not a firefighter, so I’m staying put.

ETA: this is the driest year I can recall here since 1975. Kind of scary.

@ranchandsyrup: Good to hear and you’ve got good neighbors. Depending on the upcoming season, might be a good idea to share information on a critical box you and they can grab for each other in similar situations along with the pets.

@SatanicPanic: Well, most of my neighbors, like us, have cut way back on watering so the residential lots are a bit brown. The city has cut back, and are now trimming trees aggressively so that the lack of water doesn’t cause them to break. It’s 96 here with 8% humidity and this is supposed to continue for 2 more days. This weekend will be better, but it’s not like its going to rain. If this continues to any extent this summer, everything will be flammable.

I don’t have any direct evidence to support this, but I’d guess that Ms. Upton’s temperature is around 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, while Mr. Reagan’s is almost certainly much lower than this. Based on this, it seems quite clear which is hotter.

“Fighting against Fascism” brings back memories in Russia to the Great Patriotic War (known to you and me as WII). It’s a sacred phrase that now means the opposite of what it originally meant, but because of its history no one can criticize it. It’s the same with the phrase “Freedom” in the U.S., now almost exclusively used by extreme right-wing fascist wannabees. Orwell would be accused of plagiarism had he lived now.

@Amir Khalid: In addition to Snyder’s counterpoint, mentioned by Chait, Anne Applebaum has an excellent piece dissecting the various claims about nationalists that we’ve heard here over the last few months. Both authors are people who really know their stuff about 20th century eastern Europe.

Glad to hear crisis averted for now. Nearly a hundred today here, with more to come. Waaaaaay early for such heat but such is the year we’re having. There is some suspicion the RRR (ridiculously resilient ridge) may be reforming. Scheiss!

In addition to Snyder’s counterpoint, mentioned by Chait, Anne Applebaum has an excellent piece dissecting the various claims about nationalists that we’ve heard here over the last few months. Both authors are people who really know their stuff about 20th century eastern Europe.

The most recent polling for the May 25 presidential election puts Svoboda’s candidate between 1.5-1.9% of popular support.

not to mention Iran-Contra, in which representatives of the US government secretly sold US armaments to known terrorists in an officially-hostile nation (Iran), in order to create an unConstitutional slush fund not appropriated by Congress, so that the Reagan Admin could secretly fund fascist death squads in allegedly sovereign Central American nations in an attempt to overthrow legally-elected governments — said fascist death squads then adopting such hearts-and-minds techniques as raping nuns before murdering them.

This. I’m currently reading Walsh’s “Firewall”, and have to keep stopping because it is just so infuriating. And the people who revere Reagan are going nuts about Benghazi. Jesus.